Buttons
by ThereAreNoLines
Summary: Spencer makes a discovery while she's cleaning up after Hanna.


"Fuck!"

The vaccuum is clogged again.

Spencer snaps the hose open on her knee, hitting perhaps a little bit too hard in her frustration, and from the sting that immediately blooms under the stiff fabric of her pants, she knows there's going to be a mark later. Her vehemence is powerful, sending the pieces of it flying everywhere, shrapnel in the war on dust, but she barely notices because there's still nothing coming from the hose. (Never in her life has she wanted something to just suck so much.)

"Fucking hell, Hanna." She mumbles under her breath. She's never met someone who cleanses and exfoliates and makes up so religiously, and is yet so disorganized. She bashes the end of the hose on her knee, careful to avoid the now tender spot from before. Whatever it is, whatever Hanna left behind, it wouldn't survive her dedication to cleanliness.

It's probably her earrings again, ones that she'd left aside carelessly, only for them to be knocked off the bedside table or the bathroom sink.

Or it's make-up sponges, stained with foundation that Spencer insists she doesn't need, but uses anyway.

It might be her hair that falls out of her hairbrush, snarled beyond recognition, and coated and caked with make-up powder of all kinds that drifts from the compacts and the kits and the brushes and the cotton balls. (The times in which she's particularly insecure, the air is thick with it. Those days, Spencer swears her tongue has a smoother, paler complexion after breathing that air for so long.)

Something finally clatters along the tube, and Spencer sighs in relief, tipping it over so it will fall in her hand. It has to be earrings, she decides, because sponges and hair don't make any sort of noise. (And they're bitches to get out anyway.) But no, she realizes, as the offending items tumble into her hand. They are small, but not minuscule, and the sounds they make as they tumble down the tube are not metallic ones. They aren't cold and hard against her palm. They're flat, round and smooth, varying sizes, varying designs.

They're buttons.

More specifically, her buttons.

In hindsight, Spencer knew she shouldn't have been surprised. After all, she had a penchant for button-down shirts, and Hanna had very little patience. Since she moved in last month, the blonde hasn't been able to keep her hands off of her - not that she's complaining. It's just that she's had to sew on more buttons than an overworked seamstress in the entire time she's been…getting intimate with Hanna, only to find out that she was doing it wrong the whole time. Now it's Hanna that sews the buttons back on, only to rip them off again within a week. (Spencer wonders if it's some sort of kink for her. Again, she's not complaining.)

Now, she's as post-modern feminist as it gets, but there's just something so deeply soul satisfying about coming home from work and finding Hanna curled up by the fireplace with her sewing kit, one of her shirts in her lap. She finds herself just standing there, watching as her fingertips skim the fabric delicately, like a musician, pulling the needle and thread through like a bow across a string, holding the spare pins between her teeth. It's the simplest of tasks, of actions, but it's done with such care, such love, that Spencer is just overwhelmed every time she witnesses it.

She gazes down at the buttons in her hand. Stowaways, victims of her vengeance against the accumulation of dust. Casual cleaning had missed them, but now here they were, and just by looking at them, Spencer remembers each one. What shirt they were attached to, and the exact encounter where they'd been torn asunder. Her task lay forgotten, the vacuuming abandoned, as she lightly pushed each one around idly in her palm, lost in nostalgia.

The pale blue plastic button with a milky sheen and the thread still attached. It looked like a fragment of a Fisher Price sky that had fallen into her hand. It had come from one of her older shirts, a blue one, like the color of the button, but dense and matte and flat. It was loose around her, especially around her hips, where the two sides fluttered like a cape. It was a throwaway shirt, one she had worn the day Hanna had moved in. Somehow, Hanna had conned her into doing most of the heavy lifting, but somehow, she hadn't really minded. It had paid off for her later, that was for sure. She'd just finished pushing Hanna's dresser against the wall when Hanna herself was suddenly on it, wrapping her legs around her waist, yanking her into a kiss. She wasted no time, put up no pretense, especially as she pulled at her lower lip with her teeth, hands wandering all over her curves through the fabric of her shirt. That time, she'd been desperate, and she'd only gotten through one button before the shirt was torn off and tossed aside, in favor of better pursuits.

There was a black button, rounded over, the only closure a loop at the bottom. It was from a black silk shirtdress with short sleeves - she remembered because of the way Hanna kissed her fingertips, then her knuckles, and then all the way up the smooth skin and taut muscles of her arm to her shoulder, where she lingered. She kissed away every awful thing her parents had said to her that night. She had worn that particular outfit to dinner with said parents, where they had informed them of their new living arrangement. Even just looking at the button, Spencer could still feel the dull ache, the bruises their harsh words had left behind. The sting of her parents' disapproval never lessened, though she had come to all but expect it at this point in her life. She remembered just sitting there on the bed, staring at her hands, so tightly clasped, only looking up or even noticing what was going on around her when Hanna pried them apart and began her ascent. Somewhere between her shoulder and her lips, Hanna began to whisper all the things she loved about her, and all the things they'd have together. So, by the time they were really kissing, Spencer was just as impatient as Hanna, and didn't mind in the slightest as the buttons went flying.

There was a white button, incandescent as a pearl, with perhaps the barest touch of pink to it. It was from one of the good white shirts she wore to work - where she often worked late. This shirt was the one she was wearing when she'd come home at midnight for the fifth night in a row, the sleeves rolled up, the hem stained a little bit with coffee. Hanna had been waiting up for her that night, perched on the edge of the bed like a bird of prey, ready to strike. Now, she didn't blame her for being so upset, it was just that that night had been a particularly stressful one, and having to endure Hanna's attack as soon as she stepped in the door had been the last thing she needed. So she yelled back. And Hanna yelled more. And she yelled more. Every second of that fight was just pouring tension , like lighter fluid, into the fire. Before she knew it, she was pinning Hanna against the wall, kissing her hard. It had been a flurry of teeth and tongue, and grinding and biting, and push and pull…everything she hated, yet loved about their relationship all in one. Hanna didn't even try to unbutton the shirt. Spencer only pretended to be pissed.

The last button was from just the night before. Even just seeing it brings a giddy smile to Spencer's lips, and she raises her other hand to cover her grin. It was a sunshine-yellow button, pulled from her white and yellow striped polo shit…on purpose. Spencer knows this because, when she had picked up the shirt that night, an engagement ring had been securely basted in it's place. The ring now sparkles on her left hand, the hand with the buttons, and while no new buttons had been sent flying to parts unknown that night, she was sure they would have, if there had been any.

"Spence?" Spencer can hear Hanna's voice from downstairs, the distance fading it out. After another moment of gazing at the buttons, and the memories contained in them, she turns over her hand and lets them fall. They scatter, tumbling and rolling over the landscape of the carpet. They eventually fall still, laying there, innocuous. "Spence?" She glances over at Hanna's call again, but then looks back. All in all, they remind her of seeds. And perhaps they were. Each one had come from some growing aspect of their relationship, and each encounter had only led to more, and better things.

If all it took to get there was a few ruined shirts and some speed bumps, she supposed that it wasn't a hard trade-off to make in the slightest.


End file.
